Atlas Obscura notes a remarkable book of the mid-1960s book, Lou Rand Hogan’s The Gay Cookbook. In many ways, it was a precocious text.

Cheri DiNovo’s suggestion that the United Church of Canada make a formal apology for past homophobia appeals to me. (I was raised in that church, incidentally.) CBC reports.

I quite liked this Queerty interview with out Pennsylvania legislator Brian Sims, covering everything from his opinions on Cynthia Nixon’s run for New York state governor to his status as a sex symbol.

CTV News U>reports on how established churches in Canada, facing falling attendance, are trying to reach out to new demographics.

The South China Morning Post reports on how Winnipeg is striving to include and represent First Nations cultures, here.

In the wake of its foreign buyout and the bad publicity after Ontario’s minimum wage increase, Tim Horton’s reputation among Canadians–especially as a Canadian community–seems shot. The Globe and Mailreports.

Robyn Doolittle wonders why, in an upcoming movie inspired by the Rob Ford saga, the role based on her of a journalist whose research blew the scandal open is going to be played by a male actor. (Rightfully so, I think.) The National Posthas it.

Michelle Da Silva interviews a collection of men (and others) about their perceptions of masculinity in the era of #metoo, here.

JSTOR Daily looks at the history of the enslavement of Native Americans in early colonial America, something often overlooked by later generations.

This video shared by Language Log, featuring two Amazon Echos repeating texts to each other and showing how these iterations change over time, is oddly fascinating.

At Lawyers, Guns and Money, Erik Loomis is quite clear about the good sense of Will Wilkinson’s point that controversy over “illegal” immigration is actually deeply connected to an exclusivist racism that imagines Hispanics to not be Americans.

Lingua Franca, at the Chronicle of Higher Education, looks at the uses of the word “redemption”, particularly in the context of the Olympics.

Marginal Revolution makes a case for Americans to learn foreign languages on principle. As a Canadian who recently visited a decidedly Hispanic New York, I would add that Spanish, at least, is one language quite potentially useful to Americans in their own country.

Drew Rowsome writes about the striking photographs of Olivier Valsecchi.

Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that, in the 2030s, gravitational wave observatories will be so sensitive that they will be able to detect black holes about to collide years in advance.

Towleroad lists festival highlights for New Orleans all over the year.

Window on Eurasia notes how recent changes to the Russian education system harming minority languages have inspired some Muslim populations to link their language to their religion.

Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell makes the case that Jeremy Corbyn, through his strength in the British House of Commons, is really the only potential Remainder who is in a position of power.

Despite the explanation, I fail to see how LGBTQ people could benefit from a cryptocurrency all our own. What would be the point, especially in homophobic environments where spending it would involve outing ourselves? Hornet Stories shares the idea.

Imageo notes that sea ice off Alaska has actually begun contracting this winter, not started growing.

JSTOR Daily notes how the production and consumption of lace, and lace products, was highly politicized for the Victorians.

Language Hat makes a case for the importance of translation as a political act, bridging boundaries.

Language Log takes a look at the pronunciation and mispronunciation of city names, starting with PyeongChang.

This critical Erik Loomis obituary of Billy Graham, noting the preacher’s many faults, is what Graham deserves. From Lawyers, Guns and Money, here.

Bernard Porter at the LRB Blog is critical of the easy claims that Corbyn was a knowing agent of Communist Czechoslovakia.

The Map Room Blog shares this map from r/mapporn, imagining a United States organized into states as proportionally imbalanced in population as the provinces of Canada?

Marginal Revolution rightly fears a possible restart to the civil war in Congo.

Neuroskeptic reports on a controversial psychological study in Ghana that saw the investigation of “prayer camps”, where mentally ill are kept chain, as a form of treatment.

The NYR Daily makes the case that the Congolese should be allowed to enjoy some measure of peace from foreign interference, whether from the West or from African neighbous (Rwanda, particularly).

At the Planetary Society Blog, Emily Lakdawalla looks at the many things that can go wrong with sample return missions.

Rocky Planet notes that the eruption of Indonesian volcano Sinabung can be easily seen from space.

Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes how the New Horizons Pluto photos show a world marked by its subsurface oceans.

Livio Di Matteo at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative charts the balance of federal versus provincial government expenditure in Canada, finding a notable shift towards the provinces in recent decades.

Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell makes the case, through the example of the fire standards that led to Grenfell Tower, that John Major was more radical than Margaret Thatcher in allowing core functions of the state to be privatized.